


Hang Up (& Try Again)

by hiddenlongings



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:18:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6577333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddenlongings/pseuds/hiddenlongings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold restrained himself from expelling an undignified sigh of resignation. His phone was dead. His wallet was gone. His suit was ruined. Worst of all he had to take the subway. Nathan would never let him hear the end of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_ When you find that one person who connects you to the world, you become someone different. Someone better. When that person is taken from you, what do you become then? _

John snuffled sleepily as he nuzzled between the pale shoulder blades that were peeking at him from just above white sheets. The only response he got at first was a sleepy grumble and he couldn’t restrain the broad grin that slipped across his face. Turning his head, John purposefully dragged his day old stubble harshly across the delicate flesh and the body next to him twisted away with an outraged hiss.

Harold’s eyes, still groggy with sleep, narrow into slits and his lips purse in an ineffectual attempt to keep his own small smile from creeping into view.

“Really, John? Was that necessary.”

John, still grinning, burrowed into the soft warm place between Harold’s neck and shoulder.

“Absolutely.” His voice was muffled but still clear enough for Harold to understand what he said. 

With John’s face safely tucked away, Harold allows his own face to relax and he began to twine his fingers through the short hair at the nape of John’s neck.

“Incorrigible”. 

Mexico had been a fantastic idea, Harold mused as he cuddled his lover’s lean body close to him. He’d never been so entranced so quickly with a man but John had been a bright ray of sunshine in a steadily more gloomy world.

Nathan had basically shoved him out the door and towards the airport.  A ticket clutched in his protesting hand.

“Nathan, I’m pale enough that perhaps Mexico is not the best idea for a relaxing vacation.”

“If you had your way Harold you’d live among computers in a permanently locked room where tea and Chinese food was given to you through a slot in the wall.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying you’re going to Mexico. You can ogle handsome men, get a tan, and try to forget the coding that is currently making your eyes cross.” 

His first few hours at the resort had been less than thrilling and he felt like a cliche with the floppy hat that Nathan had slapped onto his head with a gleeful grin before he had gotten on the plane.

He’d finally decided that alcohol would be enough of a balm that even if he couldn’t enjoy his vacation here at least he wouldn’t remember much of it.

They’d met on the beach. Well, met, was perhaps the wrong word. 

Harold had been greedily eyeing the heinously overpriced coconut rum drink that he had just bought from a vendor that had been rumbling around in a shaky looking cart. Perhaps he had been a little too focused on the beverage. The beach wasn’t too crowded, exclusive all inclusive resorts tended to have more beach than people.

Harold had barely gotten a single sip in when his feet caught on someone’s towel and he watched in horror as the coconut fell out of his hands. In slow motion it spun down, spraying sugary alcohol everywhere, before landing directly in the lap of the man whose towel he had just heartily kicked.   

Thankfully John had been more amused than anything else and he had grinned delightedly up at Harold his amusement crinkling his face into an entrancing delight.

That face had continued to smile broadly at Harold as he extended his stay. Leaving Nathan a voicemail that would no doubt have the other man cackling.

John’s warm personality and tactile affection had been a balm to the normally reserved man and Harold had been hesitantly thinking of inviting John to New York. 

Harold pressed his lips to John’s hair and then his eyes widened and he straightened sharply upright when he saw the pictures flashing across the silent television. He grabbed the remote and turned up the sound.

_ “I repeat. A second plane has hit the World Trade Center...” _

The two men curled close to each other as they watched the sobering images that were repeating again and again on the t.v.

* * *

The sudden punishing grip had dragged Harold off of the main streets with nothing more than a quiet yelp before he had realized what was happening. The knife had dug into his side sharply enough that he had felt it slip through several layers of fabric and into his side where blood trickled and itched as it slid down his leg.

He had quickly found himself shoved up against the nearest dirty wall with his arms held up submissively.

Harold’s eyes crossed a little as he looked down the shaking point of the rusted knife that had been shoved under his nose.  The teenager that was thrusting it at him looked to be about 90 pounds of dirt, bones, and whatever narcotic was currently keeping his wasted frame upright. It was a modern day miracle that the child had had enough strength to drag him off of the early evening streets. Actually, what was the opposite of a miracle? Bad Karma?

“Gimme your wallet!” The teen’s voice cracked in the middle of the demand but Harold didn’t feel like laughing.

The knife steadied and the eyes of his mugger were wild enough that Harold very carefully moved his left hand to reach into his pocket.

“Come on! Come on!”

When he finally managed to hold out the dark leather wallet Harold wasn’t surprised when the child’s shaky grasp meant that it was dropped in a puddle for a brief moment. The thief knelt on the ground his eyes never leaving Harold’s while he scrabbled for the wallet with his free hand.

Harold put his hands back up around his shoulders but couldn’t stop the hard flinch that shook through him as the boy shoved the wallet into his mouth and then snaked a hand into his pocket without hesitation.

The grubby paw came back into view clutching his cellphone with strained white fingers and forcefully tossed it onto the ground with a sharp crack.

Harold bit back a sharp sigh. Well there went any hope of calling for a discrete cab.

Once he had pocketed his prize the boy didn’t bother to stick around, spinning on his feet and sprinting off into the glooming city

Harold dropped his hands with a pained huff as he prodded at the growing stain on his hip that marked where he had been punctured by the dirty blade.

Well at least he was up to date on his tetanus shot but he had a feeling that stitches were in his future.

Harold restrained himself from expelling an undignified sigh of resignation. His phone was dead. His wallet was gone. His suit was ruined. Worst of all he had to take the  _ subway _ . Nathan would never let him hear the end of this.

* * *

Harold stared gloomily at the Metro Card in his hand.  The change in his pocket had gotten him a dirty look from the woman running the ticket booth but she had begrudgingly handed the card to him.

As he limped towards the subway car door Harold couldn’t stop his low mutter.

“Do forgive my appearance my lady. I know the blood clashes with my suit but I could say the same about the mustard stain on your uniform.”

Finch sidled into the creakily opening doors and stared dubiously at the car’s current passengers. A couple of young men in baggy clothes were talking quietly in one corner and a homeless man was curled up in an alcoholic stupor on the opposite side. Fantastic.

Well at least it promised to be a relatively silent ride.

And then of course, as Harold’s luck was wont to do, everything went straight to hell.

The group that strolls into the car was being lead by a man that had his silver chain necklace clenched between his teeth as he swaggered purposefully into the taller of the two men. There’s some aggressive posturing before the two obviously realize that they’re outnumbered and slink hastily out of the car.

Leaving just Harold and the homeless man for the group of young toughs to harass. Harold wasn’t sure if he was relieved or annoyed that their leader, Anton apparently, decided that the older man in ragged clothing looked like an easier target and headed straight towards him after he had a brief conversation with his bodyguard.

“Besides, when we take the car, we don’t get to meet new friends.”

Anton was walking towards the apparently helpless man and Harold made a rather foolish decision.

“Excuse me.” Harold cleared his throat after he squeaked the words out and tried to look as prim and out of place as he could. Which he imagined was none too difficult considering how out of place he felt. He quickly covered up the bloodstain that was steadily growing on his hip with his dark suit jacket and waited nervously for Anton to turn and look at him.

The young thug easily obliged him, straightening up with a quick shrug of his shoulders that made Harold worry that he might have a shoulder holster underneath the neat jacket. 

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“I’m rather afraid I got on the wrong train and was wondering if you gentlemen would be able to assist me?”

The sneering grin that crossed the younger man’s face made Harold hastily hide a nervous gulp and he tried to return the smile with a more pleasant one. Anton’s grin grew as he stepped towards Harold with a cocky head tilt towards him that rather made Harold want to put a virus into his computer and ruin his credit. 

Well if he survived this particular decision, Harold decided, he’d do his best to get a positive identification from the police and do just that. After he got out of the hospital for the stab wound and whatever beating he was about to receive from this particular group of low lifes. Well, he mused philosophically as the leader strode closer, at least they wouldn’t be able to steal his wallet. Plus it was far too likely that the homeless man didn’t have insurance to cover the cost of a hospital stay.

“Yeah.” Anton laughed. “You definitely got on the wrong train. Where you from old man?”

Harold allowed his eyes to widen as though he had suddenly realized his mistake and let a quaver, not completely feigned he had to admit, enter his voice as he answered.

“Ah, New Jersey. So sorry if I interrupted you. I’m afraid I find it difficult to stand by while young imbeciles decide who they want to pick on.”

Harold deliberately misinterpreted Anton’s slackening jaw and widening eyes for confusion, rather than a probably enormous temper tantrum in the making.

“So sorry. I’m sure you’re not used to three syllable insults in your line of work as an uneducated lackey for your thuggish father’s criminal enterprises. An imbecile is a moron. Or rather. You are an imbecile and a moron but it was the closest synonym that I could think of to use as an example.”

Harold braced himself for impact and squeezed his eyes shut chiding himself for not taking off his glasses. Hopefully none of the shards would injure his face too badly.

The blow that Anton intended to land on his face never did. Harold heard a meaty thud but felt none of the pain that he had been expecting. He let one of his eyes peek open for a quick instant and then his other flew open to join its partner in amazement. 

The previously all but comatose man was steadily working his way through the group of young toughs. The gang seemed to be as surprised as Harold was. Their punches were either immediately misdirected by a forearm or were wildly inaccurate from the start. None of them seemed to be landing any of them and they were all quickly dropped to the floor with broken noses or wrists.

They were all down in a matter of moments except for Anton. The homeless man grabbed him by the throat. Looming over him as he slowly dropped the younger man, who gasped and scrabbled at wrist cutting off his air, to the ground. He hadn’t said a word, wasn’t even breathing heavily when he finished but when he finally let Anton drop to the ground Harold watched him grab at his face. It was in a rictus of shock, as though everything that he had done since he had stood up had been nothing more than a violent reflex. 

“Well.” Harold says after a long moment, the silence broken only by the moans of the young men, “That was violent.”

* * *

Carter eyed the strange little man who was puffed up like a particularly irritated hedgehog in front of her. She could see what looked suspiciously like a bloodstain that had been growing steadily on his hip, though he hadn’t said a word about it, and between that and his perfectly fitted suit Carter had a nasty feeling she was going to lose track of both of her ‘victims’. Both of them had refused to give her their names but she already tell that the man standing in front of her had money, a lot of it, and he was going to be very willing to throw it around to get what he wanted.

Anton had always been a nasty little punk, and his bodyguards and lackeys may have been around his age they had one and all been known for their willingness to join into the fray when it came to beating the crap out of some poor unsuspecting schmuck.

The detective had watched in slack jawed shock as she saw the way the homeless man had ended up protecting the little man that was even now giving her a purse lipped stare that reminded her of high school librarians and particularly annoyed parents. 

“I’m sure he’ll be allowed to leave just as soon as he’s recovered a little from his, uh, ordeal.” Carter allowed as she surreptitiously leaned away from the stinking alley/coppery blood scent that the older man was giving off in waves.

“Fantastic. So after you have illegally held a man who, need I remind you, was defending me from a group of young thugs. No doubt you’ll just take a quick look into his background, just to be thorough. You’ll find some reason to hold him for longer.”

As he said that the man reached out and plucked the plastic cup that Carter had managed to grab from the table top, and after he crumpled it into a useless wad, shoved it into one of his pockets.

“Hey!”

“I’ll have my lawyer here just as soon as somebody gives me access to phone.”

As the man turned around to begin to stiffly march away he paused and looked over one shoulder with a nasty sneer.

“And since you’re a rather eagle eyed detective I hope you won’t object to me calling my personal physician to come here and give me stitches. I’m afraid blood loss makes me a trifle snappish.”

Carter raised a finger, though whether it was to object to his taking the cup or the fact that he called her detaining a homeless man illegal she couldn’t quite tell.

He gave her another irritated huff and proceeded to march out into one of the waiting areas his pointy little nose in the air before she could get a noise out. Gritting her teeth Carter spun back around and looked at the homeless man who had before this been completely grim faced.  He was eyeing the man’s retreating back with fond exasperation. Carter felt one of her eyebrows go up as she slid back into the room. 

“He always was getting himself into trouble.” The man’s voice was a low murmur but the detective heard every word of it.

“You know  _ him? _ ” 

As though he was only just remembering himself the man’s face again went to blank neutrality and he leaned back in his chair, this time clutching the plastic cup to his chest. 

“Not really.”

Carter stomped out of the room several minutes later. Talking to the man was like slamming repeatedly into a brick wall and he hadn’t let go of the second cup that she had brought him. She was sure that he was aware of why she had taken the first cup and he hadn’t seemed to care at all. Now that he had caught sight of the man in the suit though something had seemed to spark in him and she was sure that he’d be taking the cup with him as soon as he left with the very expensive lawyer that had stormed into the building within fifteen minutes of the little man making a phone call. 

She was pretty sure she’d never see either of them again.

* * *

Harold leaned back into the heated seats of the limo with a blissful sigh as he watched the other man fold uneasily into the leather. It looked like he was trying to keep himself as tightly curled as possible though whether that was from uneasiness or from wanting to keep his dirty clothing off of the expensive fabric was impossible to say.

They hadn’t had much of a chance to discuss what had happened on the subway, the police had turned up gratifyingly fast when the doors to the subway had opened to reveal the small pile of thugs that had been left in pitiful disarray on the floor.

“You really don’t have to do this. Just drop me off around the corner and I’ll get out of your hair.” The man’s voice was a low rumble that made Harold frown and before he could think better of it shift sideways so that he was pressed up against the warm, albeit smelly, side of his rescuer.

“Absolutely not. I’ve been looking for you for a very long time John and I have no intention of letting you out of my sight until I’m sure that you’re at least back on your feet.”

John stiffened abruptly and looked down at Harold with a horribly twisted expression of despair on his face. 

“You recognize me?”

“Recognize you? Well perhaps not at first, but you did use similar, though perhaps slightly less violent, moves on that man who had poured some sort of powder into my beverage.”

“Harold.” John pulled away from the older man and Harold huffed at the loss of heat before he snuggled grumpily into the still very nice heating of the limo. 

“Please you need to let me leave. I..You saw me, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You defended me. You’ve always been protective John and perhaps the CIA was a little overzealous in their attempts to turn you into an attack dog but I have no doubt that you’d be more likely to overreact to a threat by protecting me rather than harming me in any way.”

“You can’t know that.” John dug his hands into his eyes as he tried to clear away the fog of residual alcohol and the shocky sensation of having beaten a bunch of children on near autopilot.

“Of course I can. I know precisely everything about you Mr. Reese.” Harold hesitated before he lay a chilled hand over John’s own. “Whether we ever continue our previous relationship is perhaps still in question but I have to tell you that having found you I’m very unwilling to let you fall back through the cracks again.”

John heaved a heavy sigh and let the warmth of the limo sink into his bones for a long moment before something that Harold had said brought him lurching back upright with wide eyes.

“Wait. How do you know about the CIA?”

* * *

Harold felt somewhat like an out of shape Corgi as he herded John towards the door of his apartment building.  Although to take that analogy a little too far that made John a particularly smelly sheep. Which well...if the sweat stained sock fit. But Harold had a feeling that John was feeling perhaps a little overwhelmed by their sudden reconnection and he wasn’t up to being compared to any sort of farm animal. Aloud at least.

Harold had hemmed and hawed over John’s shocked question before muttering something about illegal hacking and government oversight that made John’s eyebrows raise in sardonic understanding.

“You were sneaking through the underbelly of the United States government again weren’t you.”

“Well if they bothered to properly firewall their systems perhaps it wouldn’t be such an overwhelming temptation.”

“They do bother to properly firewall their systems.” John said dryly. “You simply have the bad luck of being smarter than anybody who set those systems up.”

Harold harrumphed grumpily and tried to stop himself from preening at the praise, however sarcastically stated. 

The limo slid to a smooth stop and Harold hurried out of the door before he had to say anything else and John followed after him stumbling slightly as stiffened muscles fought to keep him upright.

The doorman’s eyes widened with shocked recognition as the two men staggered through the front doors of the usually quiet building. Harold was sure his hair was standing up enough that it looked like he had none too gently stuck a fork into a working electrical outlet. And he was  _ still  _ sluggishly bleeding out of the knife cut thanks to the movement of walking. 

The exorbitant fee he had willingly paid meant that the lawyer had nearly sprinted to the police station and had gotten there too quickly for him call his doctor. Getting John out of that hell hole was more than worth a little bit of discomfort; but the wool of his suit was starting to stick painfully to the wound.

“Mr. Stein. How good to see you.”

“Mr. Finch.” Stein’s mouth opened and closed but he seemed unable to start a new sentence as he took in the both of them.

“I do hope you have a good night. Mr. Stein.”

Harold refused to stop walking and when John hesitated briefly he dug a soft palm into the small of the younger man’s back. John abruptly resumed his stride and glanced down with an amused twist to his lips that flashed Harold back to sunny and warm afternoons.

He hit the elevator button for the penthouse and stared grimly at their reflection in the gleaming steel doors. Stein was nearly leaned over double at his desk as he gawped at them both and Harold had to grit his teeth so as not to snap.

He had insulted enough people today, and although Harold could fault the doorman for his lack of professionalism he had a feeling that both he and John were a sight to see.

“Oh!” Stein stood up and hurried over to the both of them just as the elevator quietly dinged open with a well greased slide of its doors. “Mr. Finch, I’m sorry. I forgot to mention that your cleaning service may still be in your apartment.”

Harold raised an interested eyebrow as he stepped into the elevator and hit the close door button with a quick peck of one of his fingers.

“Thank you for that information Mr. Stein. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

“Have a good day Mr. Finch.” Stein craned his head around the closing doors and gave an awkward wave.

As soon as the elevator had started up Finch sighed deeply.

“I’m rather afraid you might need to knock some more heads together John.”

John was leaning against the wall with a dazed exhaustion shattering his face, only partially hidden by the ratty beard. At Finch’s words all hints of vulnerability disappeared from his face and he straightened up rolling his shoulders to loosen them up.

“What are you talking about.”

Finch smiled humorlessly as he raked a hand through the dirty spikes of his hair.

“I don’t have a cleaning service.”

“Could Stein have made a mistake?”

“Unlikely, I’m afraid. This will be the third ‘cleaning crew’ to come to my apartment.”

John’s face was unamused as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Why?”

“The underbelly may have had a few unexpected surprises.”

“You got caught snooping.” John translated. “And you’ve really pissed off an organization that likes to disappear people who get caught snooping.”

Harold tried to smile winningly but he was afraid it just came across as constipated.

“You’ve always been able to dig right into the heart of a problem John.”

“Dare I ask why you haven’t called the police?”

Harold coughed sheepishly into a fist and John had to bite back a laugh as he realized what had probably happened.

“You poked them in the eye the way I showed you and once they were sitting down and relatively sedate you scolded them.”

“Really both of them were little more than boys, John.” Harold said sheepishly. “A thorough talking to and a little bit of bribery seemed to do wonders.”

* * *

John sighed as the elevator doors slid quietly open and he stepped out into the dark shadows of the apartment.

The wide open space was lit up only by the dim lights of distant skyscrapers and John wished very briefly that he had a gun in his hand as he crept through the apartment.

Thankfully Harold’s style tended towards the opulent but sparse and John had clear sightlines of nearly the entire space and he could see the out of place shadow for several helpful moments before the man crouched near one of the settees sprang to his feet and threw himself towards John with more vigor than skill.

As he dodged the first wild blow, John’s first thought was that whoever had hired this particular goon had gone the cost effective route.  He had no doubt that the hulking meathead could have easily overpowered Harold’s slight frame but his presence and the idea that the other two were nothing more than teenagers gave him the uneasy feeling that all of them were being sent after Harold without the assistance of extensive finances.

So whatever he had found out was probably deeply personal to one or two individuals who didn’t want it getting out just what had been found.

Which meant escalation. Especially if...John slid neatly to one side and watched with gritted teeth as the moron hit the floor with a loud crash. This third attempt was unsuccessful.

John strode over to the wheeled bucket and mop that the man had obviously brought in as proof for the doorman and picked up the bright yellow mop. Turning on one heel he cracked the top of the mop sharply across his attackers face blinding him with dirty strands of dripping cloth. John sharply kicked the bucket forward and into the man’s shins sending him sharply forward so he landed with a breathless thump on top of the bucket. His now soaking shirt streaming water down onto the hardwood floor.

John gently nudged Harold to one side as he wheeled his assailants dead weight into the elevator, using the long handle on the bucket to steer. 

“I’ll be just a moment Harold.”

“Please.” Harold said smile helplessly tugging at the corners of his mouth as he watched the spectacle slowly disappear behind the silvery doors. “Take your time.”

The pleasant elevator music played softly in the background as John waited patiently for the ground floor to reappear.

When it finally did Stein’s expression went from expectant professionalism to ashen faced shock in an instant as John gently steered the still unconscious man out of the elevator. The bucket was only just big enough to carry his torso so the man’s long legs dragged gently on the ground with quiet squeaking noises as the rubber on the toes of his shoes traced light marks into its gleaming tile surface. 

“Mr. Stein.” John’s voice stayed a low rumble as he steadied himself on slightly shaking legs. “I’m afraid the cleaner took a bit of a tumble. Mr. Finch was quite upset by the whole thing. He’s got such a gentle heart you know. Please do call for an ambulance.”

John strode back into the elevator without another word and the last sight he had of the attempted murderer was of the top of his bald head, gleaming with a combination of water and Pinesol.

* * *

Harold watched with detached amusement as John removed the newest assassin from his apartment.  Once the elevator doors had closed he let himself lean against the nearest wall.  His vision had been going a little gray around the edges and Finch new that the reason he had been so acerbic and insulting had been because he was still shocky from the stab wound. He really needed to have it looked at but his secondary cellphone was all the way across the broad apartment. The gleaming wood seemed to wobble under his feet whenever he tried to cross it and he didn’t want to risk falling over.

Harold felt himself sway, and before he could stop himself his knees gently gave out. He let the wall that he was bracing himself against slow down his fall so he hit the floor with a gentle thump that seemed to resonate through his head like a distant roar. 

He’d just sit here for a while. John would be back soon enough and he could have the younger man call the doctor.  Although he felt a vague sense of regret that the younger man would have to find him like this after the day that they had both had. 

Harold had been able to keep track of a lot of John’s movements over the years before he had been discovered by the CIA. The government had mishandled the man to the point of near destruction and as soon as he had seen John’s face clearly for the first time he had felt all of his plans and old protective feelings for the man had come back to him with a rush of adrenaline that had kept him moving past the point when he would have normally sat back in withdrawn anxious exhaustion. 

The years had not been kind in a lot of ways. After Mexico and September 11 Nathan had never again managed to get Harold on a plane. No matter how much of a fuss he would kick up Harold had felt something crack and wither inside of him when John had abandoned him.  They had both done what they thought was best for their country and for themselves. Harold had tried to make sure that John was at least safe from any sort of kill order and he had managed to finagle his way so deeply into the CIA’s systems that they would never be able to remove him completely. 

The government might have been trying to protect the country after the terrorist attacks but Harold couldn’t help but think that most of their attempts had been entirely too self serving. And the collateral damage had been so horrifying in scope that Harold may have perhaps managed to ruin several upper levels of  _ management _ careers before he had finally been willing to leave the CIA’s chain of command alone.

It was amazing what could be done with just a computer and a high IQ. 

Harold distantly thought that he heard the elevator door ding open and he was vaguely pleased that John had returned instead of fleeing into the night. Still a distinct possibility considering how likely it was that his ex-lover was suffering from severe PTSD. The fact that he had also managed to get the man into two separate fights today along with a no doubt nerve wracking experience with New York’s finest. Not the impression he had wanted to make.

“Harold!”

* * *

John looked down at his hands. They had been shaking the entire time that he had been at the police department. A combination of alcohol withdrawal and adrenaline meant he had felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest. Harold’s presence had slowly started to calm him, it had been more than ten years since he had seen the man but his spiky personality and big mouth seemed to have stayed the same even if he his style seemed to have achieved an update.

Honestly his legs might have been shaking from exhaustion at this point but he had had more fun today then he had in years. 

His hands were a little beat up now but they were stone steady and he could only look forward with pleased expectation to what would happen next. Harold had been a bright spot in his world and if he already knew all that he had done for the CIA John had a feeling that his skills would be needed by a man that he could actually trust.  He didn’t expect love though, Harold may have loved him at one point but now John knew what he was good for.

Harold must have realized that too if he was willing to take him home with him.  Working as a sort of bodyguard for his ex-lover was not perhaps all that he could have wished for but it was probably all that he deserved.

The elevator door slid open smoothly and as he stepped into the still darkened room John felt his eyes widen as his head swiveled around. At first he couldn’t see where Harold had gone but a dark stain on one of the creamy white walls quickly caught his attention. As he strode closer with quick steps John realized with growing horror that it was a dark crimson blood stain. It smeared down the wall and led pointedly to the slumped over figure of Harold Finch.  

John’s eyes quickly scanned the room and he hit the nearest light switch which brought the entire room into warm focus. 

“Harold!”

He hit his knees next to the prone man with a loud thud, and he straightened Harold out so that he could get a better idea of what had happened while he had been out of the apartment.

What he saw appalled him.  The fine woolen fabric of Harold’s suit was stained in a variety of places but the one that concerned him the most was the dark patch on his hip which was still growing steadily. 

As he scrabbled through Harold’s pockets looking for anything that he could use to help John pulled out a cellphone that was nearly cracked in half and it looked like the screen had been slammed to the ground.

The fact that Harold didn’t have a wallet on him also spoke volumes. John could recognize a stab wound with ease, the only reason he hadn’t noticed Harold’s was because the man could obfuscate better than any other person he had ever met. International spies and terrorists included.

Obviously he had been mugged earlier that day. Which also explained what Harold had even been doing on the subway when it seemed he could make a phone call and get a sleek limo to come to him whenever he pleased. 

John gently unbuttoned Harold’s pants and gently pulled the fabric away from the wound. It was deep. But at least it looked like the knife had sliced fairly cleanly and the blood had washed away any sort of contaminants that might have gotten stuck in the slice.

John dashed down the hallway and after a couple of false starts managed to find the bathroom. He grabbed one of the plush purple towels off of the rack and brought it back to Harold. He put firm pressure on the wound and watched as the cotton soaked up the blood easily.

Thankfully now that Harold wasn’t moving around and letting the wound tear and stretch further with every stride the blood slowly began to stop seeping out from the sides of the towel. 

John was so focused on the wound that he didn’t notice at first when Harold’s eyes fluttered open. 

“John.”  Harold’s voice was a low murmur and it brought John’s eyes up immediately to meet the light blue of the older man’s eyes, though that color was nearly swallowed up by the spread wide pupil. 

“Harold.” John kept his voice low and placating as he turned his attention back to the wound for a moment, peeking at it for a moment before replacing the fabric. “I think you need to see a doctor.”

Harold tried to sit upright, but collapsed backwards with a groan before John could protest his movement with anything more than a sharp hissing noise.

“I can’t disagree.  I’ve got a spare cellphone in that end table over there. It should be fully charged. If you could please call her I would be most appreciative. The name is Tillman.”

* * *

 

Doctor Tillman was a young woman but Harold had every faith in both her discretion and her ability to stitch him up with a minimum of fuss.

Although that didn’t stop her from giving him a very  _ disappointed  _ look when she caught sight of the length and depth of the wound.

“Harold!”

Harold resolutely stared straight ahead as she efficiently stitched him up after a brief shot of local anesthetic to numb the area.

The shot alone had been a tremendous relief to him, the pain and blood loss had started to become overwhelming. 

“It wasn’t my fault.” Harold muttered irritably. 

Tillman tossed her ponytail irritably back over her shoulder as she tied off the last of the stitches.

“It never is.”

“Do you get stabbed often Harold?” John’s voice is silky and makes Harold wince more than the needle puncturing his skin.  

“He likes to pick fights with people.”  Tillman said plainly. She had given Reese a second glance and he could tell that she had barely refrained from wrinkling her nose. Considering how much he probably smelled John couldn’t say that he blamed her.

“So nothing’s changed after all these years Harold?” John said forcing himself to act amused rather than show any of the frantic panic that had spread through him when he had found the older man sprawled on the wooden floor.

“I was grabbed off the street. It was quite unexpected and absolutely not my fault.”

Tillman sighed as she took off the latex gloves making sure that they were turned inside out so that the blood that was on her fingertips wouldn’t drip onto the floor. 

“No jogging for a week or two. I’ll be back in ten days to take the stitches out.”

Tillman dropped a bottle of antibiotics on the the countertop as she headed for the door.

“I expect you’ll take good care of him John, but just make sure that he doesn’t overexert himself. I don’t want to have to come back sooner because somebody popped a stitch after snotting off to a Hell’s Angel biker.”

“One time.” Harold muttered crabbily. “You pick a fight with a bearded ruffian one time.”

Both Tillman and John gave him nearly identical looks of pained disbelief.

Harold huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Goodbye Doctor Tillman. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Don’t mention it. Oh and John, he might need some help getting some pajama bottoms on. Those stitches are gonna leave him pretty stiff.”

Tillman put a delicate little finger under John’s nose when he couldn’t quite suppress a smile.

“Don’t you start with that. I hear enough penis jokes from my coworkers.”

She strode out of the apartment without another word.

* * *

Once Tillman had left the apartment Harold had allowed John to pull him up and take the smaller man to a velvety couch that seemed perfectly capable of engulfing people in its almost too plush cushions. 

“John. I’m fine. I promise.”

Reese rolled his eyes and gently settled Harold on the seat. When he reached for the older man’s hips, John moved slowly and watched carefully for Harold’s flinch. They may have been lovers, but that was a long time ago and they had both changed. Harold’s eyes remained steadily on him though and he didn’t flinch when John’s fingers grazed down his legs, taking the fine suit pants with them.

The stitches were nicely done to John’s trained eye and he was happy that Harold could apparently afford to trust a real Doctor. 

“Do you always have to pick fights with people who are meaner than you are?”

Harold sniffed and straightened his jacket self-consciously. John had to bite his lip to hide the smile that wanted to erupt on his face at the sigh.

“I highly doubt that they’re meaner than I am. More physically capable perhaps…”

“Harold.”

“Oh very well. Yes, I do  _ have  _ to pick fights. If I weren’t willing to step in to protect innocent people than more than likely nobody would.”

“You can’t always place yourself between danger and the little guy, Harold. Eventually you won’t be able to walk away from a confrontation.”

“Well.” Harold hesitated for a long moment, curling in on himself and turning his face away from John’s gaze. “Perhaps for a long time I haven’t wanted to walk away from some of these confrontations.”

“Harold.” John’s voice broke a little and he reached a hand out to cup Harold’s cheek before he could even think to restrain himself. He felt the smooth swell, soft underneath the slow growing stubble, rasp gently against his palm.

This touch Harold did flinch from and John watched with concern as Finch rubbed his hands slowly over his face, pulling the skin taut and white before it returned to light pink. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m suicidal per se.” Harold said bleakly. He criss crossed his fingers on his lap and stared down at his hairy knees. “It’s just. For a number of years I have had the rather unfortunate feeling that my um contribution to society has been less than helpful.”

John let himself sit down on the floor stiffly so that his head would be low enough to look up at Harold’s face. 

“I have a feeling that you’ve been throwing money and influence at any number of important causes.” John said slowly as he tried to feel his way through the minefield of emotions that seemed to crop up around people that he cared about. Even before he had joined the CIA, John had always felt unprepared and inadequate in the face of overwhelming emotions.

Harold’s smile was bleak, and he plucked at the silken boxers that were the only thing keeping his somewhat tarnished modesty intact. 

“Yes. I’ve always felt though that I was meant to do something more than just make an obscene amount of money. Nathan and I are both very good at that, and we each have our pet causes. However, I was, shall we say, involved in the creation of a machine that was supposed to change the world.”

Harold laughed and tried to stand up, only to fall back with a  yelp of pain. John reached out towards him trying to slow his fall, and managed to make sure that Harold at least landed back on the couch rather than the floor.

“I’ve definitely changed the world. For the worse I’m afraid.”

John’s eyebrows rose up high as he waited for several long moments for Harold to continue speaking but he was only met with an oppressive silence.

“The CIA gave me access. I didn’t have to hack into their mainframe, although I did dig rather deeper than any of them intended for me to.”

“It was supposed to catch terrorists before they could harm anybody. Stop large attacks and give the government all of the knowledge that they would need to make sure that events like 9/11 would never happen again.”

“They used it for something else.” John said quietly. 

It wasn’t a question and Harold continued talking as though he hadn’t heard the interruption.

“Stanton was always too willing to destroy you. By whatever means necessary.”

John couldn’t restrain the full body shiver that hit him as he heard Kara’s name.

“It turns out that the CIA is rather filled with such egomaniacs. They’d rather fight for petty revenge and struggle for power that they don’t deserve.”

Harold’s eyes finally turned to meet John’s and they were filled with a hard sheen that John had never seen before.

“So I closed down the Machine. Now all they’ll get is a social security number. They have to figure everything else out from there.”

“You could have destroyed the Machine.” John said and he let a delicate hand reach out and cover up Harold’s clenched fists. “You did everything you could to make sure that they’d still be able to protect the country while making sure that they didn’t have any other way to use it for their own gains. Not a complete victory perhaps, but certainly not a failure.”

John surged upright and caught Harold around the shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug when Harold started to sob.

“I thought you were dead.” Harold said into the dark shadow of John’s neck. “She told me you were dead.”

John could feel all of the blood draining from his face as the words hit him like blows.

“Who told you?”

“Kara Stanton.” Harold whispered and John clenched his eyes closed against the words.

* * *

 

Harold had been a shaking mess when John had led him into the gently lit bedroom.  John had to undress Finch as the man’s fingers were shaking too much for him to pull off his tie or unbutton his soiled shirt.

Late as it was, if it hadn’t been for the excruciatingly long day that the man had had John was certain that Harold wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep. As it was, Finch’s eyes were already starting to close by the time that John had pulled up the sheets and quilt to cover.

John stumbled out of the bedroom after several long moments of looking at Harold’s still form. He had been living on the streets long enough that he had become inured to own stench but the blood that was staining his fingers was enough to make him frantic.

No matter how it had ultimately ended, or apparently  _ not _ ended, with Kara John couldn’t make himself feel anything but an enormous amount of relief that Harold was back in his life. No matter the circumstances. Plus now that he knew that she was still alive John could prepare himself for Kara’s inevitable over the top return. She’d always been one for the dramatic.

She had, perhaps, rubbed that particular trait off on him as well John had to admit and he needed to get ready as quickly as possible. It seemed like Stanton still had more resources than he did at the moment, but he’d have to try and even the odds.

John went back into the bathroom that he had grabbed the towel from and was pleased to see that there were several more of them that he could use after he took a shower.

It took several long moments for him to take off the layers of tattered clothing that had kept him from freezing to death on the winter streets of New York.  The blood had already turned brown and dry on his fingers so it came off in pieces and floated to the dark tiles at his feet like gruesome snowflakes. 

John slid into the open shower, the open space was something of a relief, he hated being pinned in and the lack of walls, doors, and curtains made him feel a little more protected.

The first blast of water was icy cold and it hit him like a fist to the face, but after that brief moment he was able to turn the water to a scalding hot temperature that felt glorious.

The water streamed off of him in muddy rivulets, flattening his mass of filthy hair to his head and relieving that long ignored itch that sweat and dirt left on his skin no matter how hard he scratched.

The sleek shelves on the side of the wall held a number of expensive soaps and shampoos and John let his fingers catch and drag in his hair for long moments before the shampoos dug in deep enough that he was able to pull out most of the knots without pulling out all of his hair.

Once he finally felt clean again, John slowly let himself sit down beneath the still almost too hot waterfall of water as he contemplated a world where Kara Stanton was still alive.

Well. It wouldn't be for long if he had anything to say about it.

* * *

John jolted awake early the next morning when he heard the quiet ding of the elevator.  He didn’t move far from his spot on the floor near the couch but he did slowly turn himself over on his stomach so that he could get his feet underneath him to deal with this new threat.

If it was another would be murderer, John was going to lose his temper with the useless Mr. Stein. 

The feet that appeared near his head were in finely tailored leather shoes and were attached to a tall blonde man who was clutching a carrier case of coffee and tea. 

Probably not a murderer. They tended to be unwilling to learn the favored drink of their victim. Harold had told him a lot about his best friend. A Mr. Nathan Ingram ten years ago. He had also mentioned him last night.  This was probably him. John eyed Nathan with displeasure as he hummed quietly to himself. 

Ingram dropped the drinks on the kitchen table and turned around. John was inches away from him, glowering down at him with unfriendly menace.

Nathan’s reaction is probably in the top ten for funniest reactions from a man Reese is trying intimidate. He isn’t quite at the same level as the man who backed up so fast he went backwards over a railing, and directly into a swimming pool, level, but he’s close.

Nathan stumbled backwards, arms windmilling and jaw dropping with a high pitched screech. Honestly for a moment he kind of looked like an owl that had lost its balance.

The over sized trench coat flapping around him dramatically only added weight to the comparison.

“Jesus Christ.”

John looked at him with a quirking mouth and a raised eyebrow.

“Sorry Ingram. I only play him in the movies.”

“Who in the hell are you?” Ingram seemed to have a fairly deep voice normally but his shock had rendered him nearly falsetto and John’s smile widened briefly.

Reese shrugged and turned back to where he had placed the thin pad of towels on the hardwood that he’d used to soften the floor. 

“I’m a guest of Harold’s.”

“And you’re  _ naked  _ because!?!”

John looked down briefly at his nude body before he shrugged.

“My clothes were kind of destroyed.” 

He swooped down quickly and wrapped the first towel he could grab around his waist so that he didn’t offend the other man’s apparently delicate sensibilities. 

“Whoever woke me up before noon after yesterday’s indignities had better have brought me my tea!”

Harold’s voice was an irritated squawk as he stumped out into the main area of the apartment, thankfully wearing both pajama pants and a t-shirt so that his latest wound was well covered from unsuspecting eyes.

“It’s on the table Harold.” Nathan said absentmindedly. Finally starting to relax after the shock of John’s sudden appearance. 

“Thank God!”

Harold stumped over to the table without appearing to bat an eye at either John’s undressed state or at Nathan’s sudden appearance into his domain.

John eyed the clock on the wall and frowned when the numbers finally made sense to him. It was barely seven o'clock in the morning. No wonder Harold was so grumpy, it had to have been nearly two when they had both finally crashed for the night.

Harold guzzled at his tea for a long moment before he finally bothered to make eye contact with either of the two men.

“I have some clothes that should fit you in the guest room, John. I’m sorry I wasn’t awake enough last night to offer you that bed.”

“It’s all fine Finch.” John drawled. “I’ve certainly slept in worse spots.”

“Not exactly a glowing recommendation of comfort coming from you John.” Finch’s tone was desert dry. “I’m sure you were just pleased to not have to snuggle with rats for warmth.”

“Harold.” John chided. “I’ve never snuggled with rats. There may have been some fighting for the newspaper though. I wanted to sleep under it and they wanted to eat it.”

Nathan’s eyebrows were steadily climbing towards his hairline and John felt a sudden brief gust of shame. An emotion he hadn’t had much experience with in the past decade. Suddenly feeling his nakedness acutely, John turned on his heel and stalked out of the brightly lit room with a swagger that he had to forcibly add to his step.

The guest room had been one of the rooms that he had ignored last night. Although even if Harold had offered it to him, John probably would have still slept on the floor in the living room. All of his instincts were screaming against giving Kara any sort of advantage if she tried to get into the apartment.

He’d have to start talking to some of his friends that he had met in his wanderings to see if they had heard anything about money being offered for Harold’s capture or death.

Stanton had always been something of a cheapskate when it came to things that weren’t directly related to her own comfort. She’d hire actual professionals as a last resort. Her pride and narcissism had always left her at a disadvantage when she went up against people that were smarter than she expected.

The suit was much nicer than he had expected. Although, now that he gave it more thought John couldn’t really see Harold buying him a t-shirt and jeans. It fit him nicely, though it’s measurements seemed to be mirrored after what his body from ten years ago. The shoulder’s fit nicely, but the waist was a little snug.  

John eyed the pinched flesh wryly for a moment before he hitched the pants up a little. Amazing what happened when you drank most of your calories. Oh well better a little too tight, rather than a little too loose. Nobody was intimidating when they were trying to fight with their pants around their ankles.

And if he popped a seam, Harold could certainly afford a replacement.

* * *

 

When Reese strolled back out into the living room he did so on bare feet. Eavesdropping was always an interesting activity.  He had a pair of shoes, it was a little scary that Harold had remembered his exact size, with socks stuffed into the toes in one hand and his feet were silent on the wood.

“...telling me that you scooped him up off the streets!?! Harold!”

“Of course not Nathan.” Harold’s voice was long suffering as he tried to placate his business partner. “I scooped him up from the police station.”

John could only see the back of Nathan’s head and neck so he couldn’t see his expression but the rising flush that was apparent on the pale skin that was visible told him a lot.

“The  _ police station _ !”. 

Harold raised an eyebrow at John, who shrugged shamelessly, before leaning against the wall and waiting to hear what Ingram had to say about him.

“Why did you rescue a homeless bum from the police station, Harold?” Ingram’s words were said through gritted teeth and the hands that were curled over the back of a chair were white knuckled they were gripping so tightly.

“I felt it was only fair, after he had seduced me so nicely in Mexico and then saved me from what was sure to be a spectacular beating on the subway.”

Nathan’s pressed his face hard into his hands, they had come up hard enough to slap the skin with a sharp noise.

“The subway. Of course. The subway.”

“This was after the mugging of course,” Harold said calmly as he sipped his tea. “I’m afraid my phone was in pieces.”

“You should probably stop tormenting the man Harold.” John said lightly, inches away from Nathan again so that when the man brought his face up from his hands they were nearly nose to chin.

He didn’t flail this time at least. John had to give him that. Just jumped backwards with a shocked gasp.

John smiled sunnily at him before sitting down in the chair that Ingram had been leaning against so that he could put on his socks and shoes.

Harold frowned at the younger man for a moment before he plucked at the unbuttoned suit jacket. 

“Hmm. I’ll get you a better suit soon, John, I’m afraid my estimations were a little off.”

“It’s fine, I’ll just add a safety pin to the button loop and hook it to the button. That should give me a little more room.” John said straight faced without looking up at Harold. He was rewarded with the expected huff of exasperation.  Harold stood up and shoved the rest of his tea into John’s now free hands before he started towards an end table.

John had a feeling that Harold kept measuring tape in the drawer.

“Why are you dressing him?” Ingram’s voice was a little nasal as he pinched his nose tightly as though he were trying to ward off a headache.

“I’ve hired him. As a man of rather exacting standards, I’m afraid I can’t have my bodyguard dressed in anything less than the best.”

“On um, that note.” John interjected hopefully. “I don’t suppose you have a razor I could use?” He scrubbed his hands through the rough bush that had grown on his face. At least it wasn’t so itchy now that he had shampooed it, but a beard was as good a handle as any for somebody to grab in a fight and twist his head into a number of uncomfortable contortions.

“Second drawer on the right in the bathroom.” Harold said absentmindedly as he dug through a hodge podge of assorted pieces in the drawer.

Nathan sighed heavily and slumped down into the chair as soon as John had vacated it and headed steadily back towards the bathroom.

“Nothing you do ever makes any sense Harold.”

“Oh hush, Nathan, I made you a billionaire at forty, I haven’t lead you too astray thus far.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

John’s eyes were half closed with bliss as he let the, doubtlessly, expensive razor slip across his face with a soothing rasp as it removed the stubble that the scissors hadn’t been able to completely remove.

When he looked into the mirror the face that stared back at him was like a long distant memory from the past come back to haunt him.

His cheeks were wind-burned, and now raw from the blade. His hair had been ruthlessly chopped back so that it was nothing more than an inch of springy gray and black strands that would be nearly impossible to get a hold of.  John looked at a face that he hadn’t had much cause to see for months now.

Kara and the CIA’s betrayal had sent him into a tailspin that had only been exacerbated by the fact that all traces of Harold Finch had disappeared into the ether. It was as if the man had never existed, he had simply been a figment of John’s imagination conjured up in desperation as he fought against the unrelenting yoke of the CIA’s murderous expectations of him. 

John had held it together for several long months after he had managed to retreat back to New York City. The city that Harold had called home, and he had hoped desperately that perhaps there was still a place by the man’s side all these years later. 

John leaned in and pulled some skin tight so that he could remove the last stray patch of stubble on his face and he met his own eyes. They were alight with a spark and he couldn’t help but quirk a rueful smile at himself in the mirror.

Over a decade since he had last seen the man and Harold could still wrench his emotions into contortions of exasperated happiness with his snark and often ill-considered big mouth. 

He wiped a soft damp rag across his face to remove the last flecks of shaving cream before using the cloth to wipe up the mess he had made in the basin of the sink. 

Now that he at least looked like a respectable member of society again John contemplated whether or not behaving like a grown man in front of Ingram was going to be worth his while.

His dignity versus Harold’s poorly suppressed smile was always going to be a losing battle but John hadn’t missed the job that he had been offered.  If Harold was going to be taking the offensive now that he had somebody to fight his physical battles John would need to be on high alert.

Harold had an unhealthy habit of poking metaphorical hornet’s nests with sticks.  More often than not he came out on top when it came to a battle of wits but Kara had always been a blunt instrument.

John strolled back into the main living space of Harold’s apartment once he had felt as put together as was going to happen for the moment. He’d need to get a gun soon though, Reese’s shoulders were tense without the soothing weight of its protection strapped to his side.

When Ingram turned to face him again from his seated position John pulled himself to an abrupt stop. The man had been hunched intently over his phone and it seemed to take Nathan several long seconds before he finally looked up.  All traces of fear had left the other man’s face and all John could seem to read from Nathan’s expression was one of recognition.

“You’re John.”  Nathan said firmly; not a trace of doubt in his voice.

John arched an eyebrow at the blonde man in front of him.

“John Reese.” He said with a false smile that pulled hard at his face. “Finally recognize me huh?”   


Nathan snorted and turned to give Harold an exasperated look.

“Oh yeah Harold told me all about your whirlwind romance in Mexico. A decade ago.”  Nathan’s voice twisted into a sneer that made John shift his weight so that it was evenly distributed between both of his feet.

Thankfully Nathan’s wildly swung fist didn’t connect with John’s chin.  John’s own hands snapped out and grabbed the flailing limb before Ingram could try and strike him again. Locking the arm into a painfully tight position on the trench coat covered back and bringing the CEO to his knees in a single smooth motion.

“Nathan!” Harold’s appalled shout echoed throughout the wide open spaces of the apartment.

John released Ingram’s arm as quickly as he had snatched it out of the air and he stumbled several steps backwards. Away from Harold.

“Sorry.” John muttered. “Sorry Harold. Muscle memory.”

Harold’s face, which had crinkled up in fury, slowly relaxed as he walked over to John. Completely ignoring Ingram for the moment, who was still on his knees, so that he could come closer to John’s side.

Harold’s hand came out to gently pat John’s shoulder and his smile was warm and forgiving as he straightened John’s tie.

“Apologies, John. I wasn’t yelling at you.”  Harold’s face twisted back into a deep frown and he spun on his heels so that he was facing Nathan. Bending down so he could look into the man’s face, the hand that had so gently patted John curled into a fist with an accusing pointer finger out and poking hard into Nathan’s chest.

“I was yelling at  _ you!” _

Ingram rubbed a hand gently over the sore muscles of his arm and gaped up helplessly as Harold railed at him.

“Striking a man who hasn’t done a thing to you. No warning. No reason.”

“He abandoned you!” Nathan protested. “You didn’t smile for weeks, and he never called to tell you where he was. What had happened. Just left you to your own devices in the middle of Mexico.”

“Where  _ you  _ sent me.” Harold interrupted, voice dangerously soft.

Nathan continued as if he hadn’t heard a word.

“I read his files.”

Harold reared back as if a snake had struck at him, his face draining of color.

“I can’t believe you’d be naive enough to entrust your safety with a man that has already proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he lacks both personal and patriotic loyalty.”

“Nathan.” Harold says, eyes burning fiery bright with something close to rage as he spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “What did you do?”

“What did I do?” Nathan scoffed as he finally regained his feet with a lunging stride. “I did what you should have done, as soon as you knew this rabid animal was alive. I texted Stanton. She deserves to know that her attempted murderer is still alive.”

“You moron.” Harold breathed. “You’ve killed us all.”

John’s eyes widened as his ears caught the distinctive sound of explosive gum being placed on glass and he grabbed Harold by both arms and spun them around. Harold placed protectively into the curl of his body. When the thick glass of the window shattered with a muffled  _ whump _ the majority of the shards hit him harmlessly on his coated back, though a few sliced painful knicks into the newly exposed skin of his neck.

John shoved Harold forward without looking back to see who would be diving through the window. He managed to get the smaller man into a protected corner before he turned around and came face to face with a sickeningly familiar man.

John braced himself hard against the oncoming storm and felt his lips pull back from his teeth  in an instinctive snarl.

“ _ Snow _ .”

* * *

 

The wind whistled as it blew through the shattered remains of Harold’s nearly floor to ceiling windows.  It blew Snow’s sparse hair around in dark swirls as he stepped closer to John and Harold’s defensive position.

John had always hated the way that Mark Snow smirked. The slow cocky slide into a close lipped smile made him want to grit his teeth. It had always meant bad things.  While technically Snow had been their superior, John had always felt as though he were in an unwitting competition with the other man to gain Kara’s favor.

That smirk was already spreading across the other man’s face as Snow stalked towards them, forcing John to back up and shoving Harold further into the protective corner in the process.  Snow had a revolver in his hand that was held steady against his hip and John eyed it with displeasure. 

“John.” Snow’s voice was pleasant. As though he was happily surprised to meet an old acquaintance unexpectedly on the streets. “Been a long time.”

“Not long enough, I’m afraid.”  John hid his instinctive flinch when he felt Harold pat his hands on his lower back.  He shifted his weight so that whatever Harold was doing was hidden completely from Mark.

If Snow’s snort of laughter meant anything he had taken that shifting of weight as John’s nerve breaking down.  In a physical fight John would win every time, but the gun was a real issue that he couldn’t ignore.

John pushed one of his arms backwards, as though he were trying to herd Harold away from the ensuing fight. His palm was up and opened for a short moment, and he felt Finch slide something into it without hesitation.

Well, a tape measurer versus a gun was still a losing proposition, but at least it was something more than his bare hands.

“You always were too soft. John.”  Snow taunted. “Always too willing to protect people who weren’t important to the mission.”

The agent was professional enough to not wave his gun around as he spoke, but Reese could see the tip of it dip and wave in little circles.

“Maybe you’re right.” John murmured, fist clenching tight around the hefty metal casing of the measuring tape before he flung it directly into Snow’s face as the gun dipped down again. “Here. Let me fix that.”

If there were any sort of karmic justice in the world, Snow would have blown his own head off as he reached up and flailed at the projectile. John would have to be satisfied with the fact that the other man had managed to at least clock himself sharply in the chin with the sharp rim of the barrel of the gun.

John dove towards Snow without hesitation as the other man struggled to retrain his gun on the cornered pair.  The knees would have been best, but John couldn’t risk Harold getting shot by a stray bullet, so he aimed for the shorter man’s waist instead. 

John hit Snow sharply in the stomach with the sharp point of his shoulder and, even as they both began to topple to the ground, John grappled for the gun.

Neither of them were exactly fighting fit, John realized, as he managed to pin the gun to the floor. Snow had been comfortably ensconced in non-combat leadership for a long time, and John had been intent on drinking himself to death. Well, John would have to make up for the fact that he was a little out of shape by being just a bit meaner than the other man.  

John pulled one of his legs swing loose and away from the entwining tangle that Snow’s were trying to instigate and made as if it slam a bony knee directly into the man’s groin.

Snow immediately twisted away and John felt his knee glance semi-harmlessly off of Snow’s hip. As soon as Snow was properly distracted again, John let the hand that wasn’t holding the gun to the ground come up, and with the knuckles extended, slammed them directly into Mark’s adam’s apple.

Both of Snow’s hands came up to grasp his throat, as a wheezing whine erupted from his throat.  The gun lay forgotten for the moment on the floor so John shoved it away from them sharply.  Snow’s recovery time was admirable, John supposed, as the older man quickly brought his head up and smacked it sharply into John’s nose.

Mark’s forward momentum sent John backwards and Snow landed with painful force on John’s abdomen.

John gasped in a sharp breath of air moments before Snow’s hands had encircled his throat. John didn’t know how long he’d be able to remain conscious with Snow’s full weight pinning his chest to the floor and the iron grip that was making the world sparkle and haze as he fought for breath.

With the distracting blur of oxygen deprivation making it difficult to see, John could only barely make out a sudden blur of motion that seemed to be bearing down on the both of them.  

The window shattered again.

No. Glass shattered.

John pushed Snow’s limp weight off of his chest as it slumped forward abruptly and he slowly crawled out from under the agent.

Half of the remains of the solid crystal vase lay in glimmering shards around Snow’s body, and the other half was still clutched in a wild eyed Harold’s grip.

The blood on it’s jagged edges slowly dripped off of its clear body and on to Harold’s white  knuckled fingers, leaving gruesome trails of crimson down his wrists. The blood pooled in his curled hands, until it overflowed.

Nobody moved for several long silent moments.

Nathan, John saw, had scrambled to get away from the sudden outburst of explosive violence and was crouched near the couch with a dumbfounded expression on his face.  

Harold dropped the vase as though it were suddenly ablaze, and he let the growing pile of shards, both clear and crimson streaked, pool around his bare feet.

* * *

 

John wanted nothing more than to run to Harold’s side. He was still heaving for breath from the fight that had stopped so abruptly, but he needed to make sure that Snow wasn’t going to be getting up anytime soon.

He stumbled over to the downed agent’s side and, hooking a foot underneath the downed man’s shoulder, flipped him over onto his back.

Snow’s head moved as though he were a puppet whose strings had all been cut. Probably a broken neck, John thought shakily, but he needed to know for sure. John leaned down to check his pulse and waited for several long silent moments as he searched in vain for that rhythmic beat.

Nothing. 

Snow was dead, and John was glad of it. John stood up from where he had been crouching next to the body and turned to face Harold.

Glad, except that now Harold would have to live with this.  For all of his self assuredness and for all of the fights that he was capable of starting the smaller man had always been a gentle soul in many ways.

This might shatter him into as many pieces as the vase that lay in ruins at his bare feet.

The glass crumbled into powder underneath John’s feet as he slowly started to make his way towards Harold’s shaking figure.

“Don’t move, Harold. The glass.”  John’s hands were reaching out and grasping Harold’s shoulders in an instant.

“Crystal.” Harold’s voice was absent, as though he didn’t realize that he was speaking. “It’s crystal.”

“Sure, love.” John soothed, only second guessing the endearment after it had left his mouth and by then it was too late to take it back.  The smaller man seemed to fold in on himself as John slid up to him, kicking the largest pieces of glass away from Finch’s bare feet.

He couldn’t make a clear path, the crystal was too far spread, so John crouched low for a moment and picked up Harold in a bridal carry that would have normally left the older man sputtering and smacking ineffectually at John’s shoulders. Now all Harold could do was huff a relieved sigh as he wound his arms around John’s neck.

John could feel his arms shake a little from the strain, neither of them were quite the men they had been twelve years, but he needed to get Harold safely away from the shards of crystal and from the dead body.

He threw an unkind look over his shoulder at Ingram but jerked his head in a ‘come on’ motion.

Ingram slinked after both of them as John carried Harold back into his bedroom and settled him on the edge of the bed.

John crouched down low in front of Harold and, reaching up, slid a hand up the side of Harold’s face and into the adorable spikes of his wild hair.

“Where are your tweezers, Harold? I’ll need to get the shards out of your feet and hands.”

Harold leaned into the warm dry palm as though if he buried his face deeply enough he could ignore the world around him.

“Bathroom.” Harold’s voice was still flat.  The lack of inflection was starting to worry John, but he needed to take care of the badly cut feet first. They were covered in rivulets of deep red blood that dripped and trailed after Harold like a horrifying bread crumb trail for Ingram to follow as he crept into the room.

“I can get those for you.” Ingram said quietly.

John hung onto his temper by a very narrow margin as he nearly snarled at Ingram.

“Give me your phone first Ingram. I don’t need you making any  _ more  _ phone calls today if you please.”

Ingram, tall and broad as he was, seemed shrunken in on himself. All of his bombastic movements and broad smiles had disappeared and he handed the phone over silently before he ghosted out of the room.

Harold’s hand startled John as it pulled his face back towards him. They weren’t free of cuts, but they weren’t bleeding nearly as heavily as his feet. The thick crystal had only shattered where it had impacted heavily. Against the back of Snow’s head and against the floor.  

John finally realized that he had fisted his hand into Harold’s hair tightly enough that it had to have hurt.  He let go immediately and started to retreat from his place between Harold’s legs. Too intimate. Too close. John sides ached from the repeated blows that Snow had dealt him and the warmth of his bruises seemed to be leaching the heat from the rest of his body.

Harold tightened his legs and let them press, gently, into John’s sore ribs.  His other hand came up so that he was cupping John’s jaw in both hands before he leaned in close and pressed his forehead against John’s.

They breathed each other’s air for several long moments before Nathan came back into the room with shuffling feet.

This time when John leaned back, to get the tweezers and bandages that Ingram had gotten, Harold let him go.

John picked up the right foot first and started to delicately pluck the glass out of Harold’s skin.  The cuts were shallow and there weren’t very many of them. John was methodical but quick so he managed to get both of Harold’s feet cleaned and wrapped in a few minutes.

When John pulled himself to his feet this time, he grabbed Ingram’s phone on the way up.

The latest message from Kara was still flashing on the screen. As though Snow had shown up quickly enough that Nathan hadn’t even had time to open it.

When John pressed the icon to pull up the message, he had to mentally brace himself against what was coming.

He scrolled up a ways first. John wanted to see the entirety of the conversation, short as it probably was.

_ John Reese is at Harold’s. I thought he was dead. _

_ So did I...Don’t worry Ingram I’ll do my best to  make sure that he won’t hurt anyone ever again. _

_ Why did he do it? Why did he betray you? _

_ What are traitors always interested in? _

_ Money. _

_ Money. Distract him, I’ll send someone soon. _

_ Okay. _

John’s lips twisted into a deformed smile. If anybody had been in it for the money it had always been Kara. Although the unnecessary violence against innocents had also seemed to be very appealing to her. She loved power and money and violence brought her different forms of it that she adored. He still hadn’t read the last message and John finally forced himself to look back down at the screen.

_ Hello John. Resourceful as ever I see. _

* * *

 

John had forced a couple of aspirin down Harold’s throat before he had started to pack.  

Ingram was still cowering in his chosen corner but Harold was starting to perk up. He watched John’s spare movements with thoughtful eyes.  John tried to ignore him as he strode through the bedroom and into the attached bathroom.

Underwear, socks, toothbrush and toothpaste. A pair of running shoes that promised to be a little easier on Harold’s damaged feet than the lines of fine leather dress shoes that dominated the floor of his closet.

A sweatshirt and pant outfit was thrown into the small travel bag that he had found as well. John wanted Harold to be warm and comfortable, but he also wanted him to be as unrecognizable as possible.

As he started to gather together the last few pieces, Harold received a text message.

The phone buzzed respectfully from his bedside table and John was picking it up before he even realized it.

It didn’t make any sense.

“Harold, do you have a realtor?”

Finch looked up at him for a moment before dawning comprehension lit his face back up.

“May I see that text, John. I believe it might be of some importance.”

John handed the sleek little phone over without hesitation.

Harold’s face was twisted into an amalgam of desperate hope and something like exasperation.

“I never could get it to understand, that it wasn’t built to protect me.” Harold said wryly.

“This is your Machine?” John demanded as he looked at the address again. “What’s it trying to tell you?”

“Where to go. It believes that the three of us will be safest at this location.” A hint of Harold’s normal slightly cocky pride reentered his voice. “It’s very rarely wrong.”

“Machine.” Ingram’s voice was faint but it brought both men’s heads around. “What machine?”

“The Machine I built for the government, Nathan.” Harold’s voice was not kind. “The Machine that I built without your knowledge because I knew that you were categorically incapable of keeping your mouth shut.”

Nathan flinched back but seemed to be regaining some of his stubbornness.

“It’s intelligent?”

“More so than perhaps I gave it credit for.” Harold allowed before he turned back to his phone.

“Well then,” John said slowly. “I think we need to leave quickly. Kara seems to know that you...we killed Snow.”  

Harold quickly pulled the sweatsuit on over his boxers and undershirt. He slipped into the shoes with a grimace of pain but without complaint. 

If his hands were shaking and his face pale from the reminder of his recent murderous impulse, nobody was going to tell him so. 

All three men filed out of the bedroom and into the elevator.

They stood in tense silence, John couldn’t seem to restrain himself from placing his body as a barrier between Harold and Nathan’s.

He was still going to attempt to save the man from his own stupidity but trust was a little too much to ask for.

Mr. Stein was firmly seated in his chair when all three exited the elevator.

The bright smile that met them was more than a little forced, and John saw the empty wheeled bucket had been shoved into a corner of Stein’s workspace.

The entrepreneurial thug that John had left in it so many hours before was long gone and John thought it was more likely that Stein had called the HOA rather than the police once the man had gotten over his shock at the sight of the unconscious man in his entryway.

“Have a good day, Mr. Finch. Mr. Ingram.”  Stein’s smile broke completely when he tried to meet John’s eyes. “Sir.”

“You as well. Mr. Stein.” Harold said with forced cheerfulness as he limped out the doors.

Ingram and Reese didn’t bother to say a word. They just followed after the smaller man in a deep silence. Choked back rage on John’s part, and perhaps regretful shame on Nathan’s. 

John raised a hand to hail a taxi as soon as they were on the street. When John gave the cabbie the address Finch’s eyebrows raised.

The cabbie headed off in the opposite direction of the address that the Machine had given them but John was more than a little relieved when neither of the other men questioned him.

The fight with Snow had been too close. He couldn’t risk another confrontation without being properly armed.

Thankfully, he supposed, the little thugs that had tried to assault Finch on the subway had been a little too easy going. He knew exactly where to go to get a pile of illegal weaponry. Hopefully more than enough to take on whatever Stanton had to offer.

He was only gone from the taxi for fifteen minutes at the most. But when he came back and slid into the seat John had a hefty black canvas bag that he laid at their feet and freshly bruised knuckles that were starting to look a little raw from the repeated beatings he had dealt out over the last few days. 

It took a very long taxi ride, and then a very long walk for the three men to step up to the doors of the building that the Machine had led them to. 

John eyed the double doors in front of him with something like distrust.  The Machine may have been one of Harold’s creations. Perhaps even his most brilliant, but an abandoned library was not what he would have chosen as a place to take a stand against Kara Stanton.

Though admittedly, John thought begrudgingly, it had a number of things in its favor.

The windows, while present, were small. The doors were solid wood and the walls were made out of stone. All of these things meant that it anyone that tried to enter the building by force would need to make a great deal of noise to do so.

Harold strode up the steps and easily keyed in the code that would open the little lock box that had been attached to the door handles.

Some enterprising realtor had apparently tried to sell this behemoth to no avail. Harold plucked out the key and opened the door with only the slightest of hesitation.

“Harold.” John said before he gently nudged the older man back away from the doors. “Let me look it over quickly.”

Harold opened his mouth to protest, and John raised a placating hand.

“I know you trust the Machine, but I’ll feel more comfortable if I can make sure that everything is secure.”

Harold huffed a deep sigh before he crossed his arms, gingerly, over his chest.

“Fine. But if you find any rodents or evidence thereof. Please, feel free to  _ not  _ tell me.”

John smiled briefly before he swept into the building quickly. Drawing his gun with an easy pull that let something finally relax in his chest.  At least for the upcoming fight he’d be armed.

* * *

The library was eerily silent. As John slipped through the dusty stacks the only sound to be heard was the muffled pad of his own footsteps. The building was large, and full of nooks and crannies that he scoped out quickly. Reese noted likely looking places for him to cache his new arsenal. 

Thankfully, as he had hoped, the double doors were the only way to enter. Well unless someone wanted to dig through a wall or blow out a window. Again.

When John stepped back outside Harold and Nathan were standing in the bitter silence that meant that an argument had occurred while Reese had been scoping out the building.

Harold had two bright spots of color high on his cheeks and he looked ready to pick another fight. His hands were clenched into fists and planted firmly on his hips.

“All right.” John said quietly. “Let’s get inside. Place looks safe enough.”

Harold huffed a frustrated breath before he let his body relax a little and took a step forward. It must have caught him neatly on one of the deep cuts of his feet as he nearly fell to his knees.

John and Nathan both reached out to catch the smaller man before he could fall too far. Each man managed to grasp a shoulder so Finch was brought back this feet before he could even gasp in alarm.

“Harold.” Nathan scolded, almost absentmindedly. “Be careful.”

Harold’s face had turned vermillion and he sputtered briefly before he marched through the doors of the library.

John and Nathan traded commiserating looks before both men remembered themselves and trailed after Finch.

Finch was halfway up the stairs by the time they caught up with him, he was clutching the railing and moving gingerly but with a fair amount of speed.

John thought ruefully that if they were in a cartoon Finch would have left a trail of dust in his wake and he and Nathan would have had no chance to catch up.


	3. Chapter 3

The three men barely managed to drag themselves up the stairs and into the narrow defendable corner that Reese had found. As John flexed his bruised knuckles, he contemplated murder. Again. 

The corner had been partitioned off from the rest of the library with a tall metal gate that Reese had been able to pull tightly closed to add another layer of protection from Stanton’s inevitable next move. The rattle sounded a lot like a cell door slamming shut.

Harold was back to favoring his feet. The long walk had probably ruined any sort of protection that the thin bandages might have offered. Breaking Ingram’s nose (or neck) was starting to look more and more acceptable. A question had been niggling in the back of his mind for long minutes though. A question that he seriously needed an answer to.

“How did you come to have Stanton’s number?”

Ingram flinched in on himself even further as John’s soft words seemed to strike him like blows. John had fought to keep his voice level and soft but that didn’t seem to lessen the impact.

John let his hands relax from the fists that they had been clenched into. Ingram wouldn’t be able to answer any questions if he was unconscious, and hitting him was starting to seem rather petty at this point.

Harold lowered himself with a fwump of dust into a small leather sofa, and sighed deeply.

“I’m rather afraid that may be my fault, John.”

Reese let one of his eyebrows raise in a silent question as he started to unpack the first aid supplies and knelt at Harold’s feet.

He had to pry the shoes off with gentle force. The swollen edges of the cuts and the dried blood caught at the conforming fabric of Harold’s shoes.

“I’m all ears, Harold.”

Finch grunted with discomfort before he released another sigh and sunk deep into the cracking leather.

“I thought she had killed you.”

“So you introduced her to your best friend?”

Harold’s pale face flushed and he averted his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

“No, of course not. I had been attempting to find enough information to convince the CIA to have her killed.”

John huffed a laugh as he unwound the bandages. The white fabric had turned a dark reddish brown, but thankfully it seemed to pull away from the wounds fairly easily.

“You were going to blackmail the CIA? After everything that had happened and all of the information that you had given and taken from them that was your bright idea?”

“I needed to do something. Once I figured out that Stanton used to be your partner it was a simple enough process to pull up her file and figure out that she had made every effort, with all appearances of success, to shoot you dead.”

John hesitated for a long moment before he pressed one of his cheeks to Harold’s and let their breath sync up. It took several long silent moments before Finch relaxed into John’s half embrace and whispered quietly into John’s ear.

“Beside’s I wasn’t trying to blackmail them this time. I was trying to bribe the CIA. An entirely different sort of thing, you must admit.”

“Must I?” John sighed before he let his forehead fall forward onto Harold’s shoulder.

“I’m afraid you must my dear.” Harold’s hand was warm and soothing on the back of John’s neck. Soothing in a way that nothing had been in the years that they had been apart.

When Harold spoke again it was loud enough that Nathan would be included in the conversation, though the smaller man didn’t move from where he was curled into John’s heat.

“Stanton came to one of my offices. I imagine she rather wanted me dead, but I had gathered so much information on her that she needed to know what I knew. I believe a kidnapping would have been rather imminent but Nathan was there. So she made a few backhanded threats about the repercussions of bad life decisions. And gave Nathan, naive womanizer that he is, her number.”

Ingram opened his mouth to protest but shut it with a painful sounding click when John leveled an unamused stare at him.

“Their texts seemed relatively innocuous. Sexting and the like. I thought she’d sleep with him a few times to get information on me and that would be the end of it.”

Nathan sprawled back into an uncomfortable looking desk chair and studied Finch with a rueful expression.

“I never could hide my innumerable flaws from you.”

John kept half an eye on Ingram even as he saw Finch relax into himself. Some harsh tension finally releasing itself from around his eyes.

“Of course not, Nathan. I have always enjoyed your, shall we call it sunny, outlook on life.”

“You mean naive.”

“I mean that you always look for the best in people. While I generally only see the worst.” Harold gently ran his hands through John’s close cut hair. “With one notable exception of course.”

Nathan’s eyes were sad as he looked at the two men and he seemed to wrap his trench coat around himself more tightly in an attempt to keep whatever great emotion he was feeling at bay.

“I told her about John. About you and John. Looking back it was obvious she led the conversation there, but I was, relaxed,”

Post-coital. John’s mind supplied sharply.

“And I wasn’t paying any attention to where the conversation was coming from.”

* * *

 

All three men ended up dozing off. The pleasant smell of decaying books and the close warm air of the closed off small room meant that the exhaustion dragged hard on all of their heels.

Harold stretched out on the couch with his legs, though the shortest of the three, hanging over the opposite arm and one arm flung over his eyes to keep the soft ambient lighting away from him.

Nathan was leaning back as far as the small office chair would allow, his head sunk onto his chest and his hands crossed on his belly so that he was uncomfortably balanced and his breath came in soft little snorts.

John had claimed the small duffel bag of clothing for a pillow and was sprawled out on the wooden floor in a light doze that let him keep a steady ear out for any sort of unexpected noises.

The soft buzz of Finch’s cellphone brought him upright abruptly, even as the other two slept on in peaceful obliviousness.

The text message was a strange one, and it didn’t have Kara’s usual vicious flair.

_ Admin is difficult. _

John’s sweeping gaze caught and held on a small security camera that had apparently stopped its steady sweep so that was looking directly at him.  The blinking red light seemed to be expectant so John carefully tapped out a reply.  

_ How is he difficult? _

The phone buzzed softly again but this time it wasn’t a text.  A call was coming through and John hesitantly answered it. Only to be met with a garbled mix of words that took him a moment to parse out.

“He NEVER stays where I put him.” The Machine said. All of the words seemed to come from a different voice but the tone was universally downtrodden and almost forlorn.

“Yeah,” John said slowly. “I don’t imagine he does.”

“Optimal health is...required. Admin must be safe.”

“Well, you brought us here. Why is this place so important?

“Asset Reese and ass Ingram will protect him here.”

John had to bite down hard on his lower lip and clench his eyes shut to fight back a bark of laughter at the snide tone that the Machine had gathered.

A sentient machine with a sense of humor. Would wonders and horrors never cease.

“I’m sure we’ll do our best.”

“Better do more than your best. Bitch has been cut off from C. I. A. and will not be welcomed back. They have forgotten you. Now.  Kill her. Kill her.  KILLHERKILLHERKILLHERKILLHER!!!” The Machine shrieked.

John pulled the phone sharply away from his ear, when the screaming gave way to a piercing scramble of static that left him wincing before the phone abruptly went silent.

Reese’s eyes turned back to the phone and saw that one of Finch’s delicate fingers had hit the end call button.

Harold was eyeing the phone that was clutched in John’s white knuckled grip with some concern.

“I take it the Machine has rather lost her temper.”

“Little bit.” Reese said holding up his thumb and forefinger and holding them a bit apart. “Seems you’ve been making uh, her, frantic with your Bantam Rooster routine. You never stay where you put her.”

“If I stayed where she put me.” Harold said dryly. “I’d never see sunlight or humanity again. She sees everything after all. Fortunately the Machine can’t curtail my movements without overriding her base programming. Much to her displeasure.”

Harold scrubbed both hands across his face and ran his fingers through his hair until the dark strands stood up in every direction. His eyes were red from exhaustion and when he spoke again it was despondent “The Machine has always been too protective of me.”

Ingram hadn’t budged from his uncomfortable looking position in the office chair when Reese glanced at him briefly before he reached a hesitant hand out to cup Harold’s face again.

“I know the feeling.” John said softly.

He couldn’t quite restrain his flinch when Finch shied away from the contact.

“I think that you should go Reese.”

Something started to crack in John’s chest at the words.

“Why?”

When Harold opened his mouth to respond John threw up an open hand and silenced the older man before he could begin.

“Actually, forget that. No.”

“No, what?”

“No, I’m not leaving.”

“John be reasonable!”

They’d kept their voices to harsh whispers up until now, but Harold’s sudden exclamation caused Ingram to give a short snort as he abruptly sat up in his chair. Harold & John both turned to look at the movement and watched as Nathan turned to look at them with bleary eyes that nonetheless seemed to take in the brewing argument at a glance.

“Hmmm, pretty sure I saw a bathroom downstairs.”  

“There’s no running water.” Harold said blankly.

The cellphone in John’s hand vibrated with an incoming text message.  He glanced at read the message with quirked lips.

“Water’s working fine. She had someone come out from the utility company.”

Finch’s eyes fluttered closed and his lips thinned so much that they went white around the edges.

“Of course she did.”

Ingram heaved his lanky frame up from the chair and after a momentary wobble strode out of the room without a word or a backward glance.

John was heading closer and closer to forgiving him. Sure the man was a moron but he always seemed to have Harold’s best interests at heart.

Harold tried to stand up just as quickly in order to make some sort of escape from the awkward conversation.  The injuries to his, now stiff from from the nap, feet meant that he fell backwards with irritated huff though.

John fought through the waves of inadequacy that always seemed to hit him when he was with this man. They were both damaged, but hopefully that didn’t mean they wouldn’t fit into each other’s broken parts.

‘Are you pushing me away because you don’t trust me or because you plan on becoming a martyr?”

John’s voice was usually quiet, he didn’t like yelling and dramatics were beyond him; but intensity filled his voice and refused to break eye contact.  He shifted so that when Harold tried to look away they stayed connected.

“I don’t really know you anymore, John. It’s been a long time and you don’t owe me anything.”

“You kept me going Harold.” John said earnestly. “Kept me fighting all the way through the hell of the CIA. You saved me on the train too. I owe you a lot. But I’m not staying because I owe you anything. You said you didn’t want to let me go; well I can’t stand the thought of letting you leave me again.”

Harold seemed to be speechless at the end of John’s speech and his hands reached out to flutter across John’s face again.

John slowly crawled forwards and up so that he was soon perched lightly over Harold’s lap with his knees digging deep grooves into the thin cushions.  He didn’t think Harold could take his weight but he wanted to be as close as possible to the other man.

He bit his lip for a long moment as he looked down at Harold.  His hands were braced against the back of the couch and let them bend so that he could press his lips hesitantly against Harold’s and was met with cautious acceptance.

The kisses never deepened but they sipped at each other’s lips for long moments and John finally let his hips settle a little bit so that he could feel the solidity of Harold’s groin and chest.

The only reason that John heard the phone suddenly buzz was because he had kept an ear out to make sure that Ingram wasn’t coming back as they snuggled on the couch.

John scooped up the phone quickly and when he read the words his eyes narrowed and he wrenched himself away from Harold’s lovely heat.

_ She’s here. _

He definitely needed his guns. And this time, he wasn’t going to miss.


End file.
